Counting down to dusk...
The attached picture is one of Mumbai's many famous landmarks. A neo-gothic wonder that rivalled anything the empire had back home- the Rajabai Clock Tower on the Bombay University campus. Rumour has it that they closed it off a few decades ago when it turned into a suicide magnet for students who did not fare that well in their exams. The maidan (field) in the foreground, now cricket central, was once the vast open areas the Brits cultivated around their forts to have clear firing range on any attackers. Ironically the university was built on the footprint of the fort's walls, and the expanse of open space, once Bombay's lungs and emerald jewels, has been whittled into irrelevance by generations of land grabs, corruption and negligence. Behind where I stand and take this picture stood a row of fine Art Deco apartments, now renovated into nouveau riche hell. I decided to let my legs take me around the City today and walked and walked for a few hours along familiar ...